Modern research and clinical laboratory procedures include biological and chemical analysis of specimen-substances that require extensive fluid manipulations. Many of the routine applications used for analysis are bioassays, immunoassays, viral assays, mitogen assays, serology, protein assays, lymphokine assays, and sample aliquoting. Experimental biological and clinical research include the use of photometric analysis of chemical reactions after the reactions have reached equilibrium or a fixed end point. Certain enzyme assays require a two-point or multi-point analysis embodying kinetic assays.
Standard fluid transfer and manipulative techniques include pipetting, diluting, dispensing, aspirating and plate washing. Conventional assays may be performed, in part, by rapid manipulation of manual pipettors or conducting assays which are piecemeal automated. Heretofore, the measurement portion of the assay, including determining optical or pH parameters, have been entirely manual or semi-automated. Common assays such as ELISA (enzyme linked immunoassay), viral, protein, and other biochemical studies and experimentation require liquid handling such as sample preparation, serial dilution, reagent addition and sample transfer to yield results. Bioassays and chemical experimentation which require making use of such liquid handling techniques, when performed manually, are replete with potential inaccuracies and error. It is difficult for a laboratory technician to accurately dispense the exact amount of liquid in each of 96 wells on a plurality of microtiter plates. The repetitious nature of liquid handling for experimentation inherently leads to mistakes which cannot always be detected. What has not heretofore been within the domain of biotechnology is a system which allows a bioassay to be carried out automatically from start to finish with little or no need for human intervention once the assay has begun.
Traditionally, the foregoing experimental, clinical, and other laboratory procedures require tedious step-by-step sample and control preparation which are then sequenced through a series of operations depending on the raw measurements, their analysis, and the nature of the chemical or biological investigation. As an example, the conventional experimental procedure for the production of monoclonal antibodies is essentially unchanged since first reported by Kohler and Milstein in Nature (Vol. 256, pp. 495-497-1975). Briefly, a mouse or rat is injected with an immunogen or antigen. The animal responds to the antigenic challenge by the production of antibodies. Mouse spleen cells from immunized animals are dissociated and fused with myeloma cells. Some of the resulting hybrids will include cells that produce only antibodies against one site on the challenge antigen.
Hybridoma selection and screening is a biotechnological procedure where samples of cell culture supernatants of cancerous myeloma cell hybridomas (a hybrid of a cancerous myeloma cell and a challenged lymphocyte) are tested to create, by manual pipetting, from sample volumes from growth plates to assay plates, a hybrid for the purpose of producing a single antibody with the immortal growth characteristics of the cancerous cell. The number of samples which require testing are commonly as great as 750. In order to select the desired hybrid cell, it is necessary to begin an experimental run starting with a single cell placed into hundreds of microtiter plate compartments or wells. Traditionally, the researcher manually analyzes each of the specimens after each clone has had a chance to grow and then determines whether the desired antibodies have been produced by use of optical spectroscopy in an immunoassay. Those cell colonies which are producing the antibody are actively grown for the rapid production of a monoclonal antibody, a desired product of the hybrid cells for the rapid production of a biochemically necessary substance. The cells are also recloned back to a single cell stage and grown for expansion for the production of additional antibodies.
The conventional hybridoma process as developed by Kohler and Milstein is based on the fusion of an antigen stimulated lympocyte (immunocyte) with a non-secreting myeloma cell. The myeloma cell which is cancerous confers immortality to the fusion partner, resulting an an immortal, hybrid cell which secretes the antibody conferred by the lymphocyte. The antibody is specific to the stimulating or challenge antigen. Performing this process involves five major areas of work. They are cell fusion, cell feeding, screening and assaying of hybridomas, cloning and expansion. Each area of work can take up to a full eight-hour day requiring basic manual pipetting. Briefly, the hybridomas of a cell fusion are dispensed by manual pipetting to over 1000 wells of a plurality of 96-well tissue culture plates. The hybridomas are then nourished every three to five days by hand, aspirating the old media and replacing it with new cell culture media (this step results in about 2000 manipulations). Screening of the hybridomas is done to locate those hybrids which are secreting the antibody of choice. This process requires manually sampling up to 1000 wells by pipetting the cell culture out of each well and placing it into the wells of corresponding assay plates. An ELISA is performed on these plates whereby all reagents must be manually pipetted from reservoirs to the assay plate in proper physical order and time sequence. The results of the ELISA are determined by a conventional plate reader. These results must be correlated to the original growth plates for accurate selection and cloning. All data correlation has heretofore been done by the scientist through known computation techniques.
Selection of positive hybridomas is done based on the accurate calculated correlation of the results from the ELISA to the growth plates. Those wells which indicated a positive result are the cloned. This can be distributing each hybridoma over an entire 96 well tissue culture plate. The cloned hybridomas are allowed to grow and are re-nourished as with the original plates. All wells with hybridomas growing in them are again assayed for the production of antibody by the ELISA method. Data is obtained and correlated as before and those positive clones are expanded in numbers.
Each clone is manually pipetted from the 96 well tissue culture plate and transferred to the wells of a 24 well tissue culture and allowed to grow until an expanded cell number is reached. Subsequently, all clones are aliquoted (pipetted) manually into special freezing containers and frozen until needed.
Since the basic procedures of manual pipetting, data determination, and collection are common to all the applications described and since these applications are common to disciplines from biochemistry to virology, any system which can combine liquid handling, pipetting and plate reading will have broad applicability into many scientific disciplines which utilize these basic procedures.
As promising to biological research as the use of monoclonal antibodies appears to be (see, U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,110 issued Mar. 8, 1983 to Gary S. David et al., entitled "IMMUNOMETRIC ASSAYS USING MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES"), conventionally, the practicality of using monoclonal antibodies has been heretofore limited. Compared with conventional antiserum (derived from polyclonal antibodies by known immunoassay techniques), hybridomas required a relatively high cost to prepare. Hybridoma production has been restricted by the limited variety of parental cells available for hybridization.
To produce large amounts of monoclonal antibodies, the hybridomas are grown as mass culture in vitro. Mass production of such antibodies requires improvement in the antibody concentration in the spent medium. Conventionally, the time required from the start of the in vivo immunization procedure to preliminary characterization of hybridomas is three months. The most labor intensive procedures are the maintenance of hybrids in culture and the assaying for antibody production.
It is the inevitable consequence of monoclonal antibody development that constant monitoring of the planned protocol of the experimental assay be conducted with a meticulous concern for detail and accuracy. As this biotechnological method for producing monoclonal antibodies is practiced, error resulting from tedious experimental repetition is likely. The conventional art simply lacked an instrument which could aid in reducing the time for practicing the ordered steps of protocol needed for antibody production, while, at the same time, increasing the relative purity of concentration of the isolated monoclonal antibodies without the introduction of increased error that normally accompanies stepped up production.
Other biological procedures and assays include investigative methods such as serial dilution which are conventionally performed by beginning with a plurality of separate samples of a substance at high (i.e. nearly 100%) concentration. These samples are then diluted to lower known (e.g. approximately 50%) strengths when mixed with diluent according to known methods of serial dilution, where successively increasing proportions of a diluent is added thereby obtaining a series of respectively decreasing concentrations of a sample. The various sample concentrations can then be assayed at a useful concentration to determine a particular property. For example, the sample might be a serum and the assay may employ a serial dilution which will demonstrate the relative concentration of the serum component to be measured which exhibits the greatest activity when reacted with a particular substance (such as a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assay). U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,094, issued to Salomaa and assigned to Cetus Corporation of Emeryville, Calif., is an example of a liquid sample handling system which performs predetermined serial dilution by means of an automatic liquid transfer system operating within the framework of a fixed open loop system.
Conventionally, pipettors and micropipettors are operated manually by suction created through the user's mouth (an undesirable activity due to likely contamination) or with an automatic hand-operated pump or syringe. Such methods of pipetting can be long and tedious, susceptible to cross-contamination, as well as prone to measurement inaccuracies, and harmful to the scientist, where, for example, a given chemical or biological assay requires repetitious use of a pipettor for the introduction of a dissolved sample in hundreds of microtiter receptacle wells.
Another attempt at automating liquid sample handling is U.S. Pat. No. 4,422,151 issued to Gilson. The Gilson liquid handling apparatus discloses an open-loop system for fractional collection, sampling, dispensing, and diluting. The Gilson apparatus uses a microprocessor and three stepping motors to move a liquid handling tube suitable for dispensing or sampling in horizontal or vertical directions with respect to an array of test tubes or similar containers. No indication of the degree of precision and accuracy of liquid transfer is indicated in the disclosure of Gilson. The pattern of movement of the liquid handling tube may be selected according to a predetermined mode of operation which the operator desires. Once an operation is selected, it is fixed, and the liquid handling apparatus automatically carries out the instructions. The control means of the device described in the Gilson patent is used to selectively energize the drive motors for moving the carriage holding the liquid handling dispenser into positions corresponding to receptacle location positions and moving the holder device in three dimensions so that liquid may be transferred from one receptacle of a microtiter plate to another. Once the command is entered into the Gilson device, it is automatically carried out as instructed. Although such a device substantially reduces the need for manual effort in precisely measuring the pipetting or dispensing to be done for each of hundreds of receptacles, in particular bioassay or chemical assay, the Gilson device operates strictly in an open loop environment, performing fixed, predetermined liquid transfers.
Chemical and biological assays may be accomplished by the application of human judgment at every stage of the assay to control the course of experimentation. For example, the initial primary samples may be prepared manually or by an automated pipettor dilutor as disclosed in the Gilson and Salommaa patents. Conventionally, other instruments, such as an optical plate reader or a spectrophotometer, must be independently used to analyze a physical or chemical characteristic of each sample receptacle in the microtiter plate. After this tedious analysis is undertaken, the experimenter then selects to further analyze and subject to chemical or biological reactions only those sample plates which indicate a desired or optimum range characteristic. For example, in the hybridoma procedure as described hereinbefore, only those cell colonies which are producing monoclonal antibodies of the desired specificity are selected for further experimentation. Those cell colonies may be identified by spectrophotometric immunoassays which indicate an optimum optical density. Once the optimum samples are identified, only those samples are used in the latter stages of experimentation. Conventional manual methods of pipettor dilution and titration, as well as the devices disclosed in the Gilson and Salommaa patents, do not provide for any input by the operator to the direction of the assay on a real time basis once the experimentation has commenced. Being an open loop system, the conventional art is not able to execute the judgmental decisions preprogrammed by the researcher which respond to experimental data as the assay progresses.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,488,241 and 4,510,684 assigned to Zymark Corporation disclose a robot system with interchangeable hands and a module system; these patents are directed at a robot system for manipulating a series of discrete devices used in the field of analytical chemistry. These patents teach the use of a robotic arm to open, touch and manipulate discrete laboratory devices in an emulation of manual methods. These patents teach the use of a robot system to control these conventional laboratory instruments by their automatic manipulation; the techniques of the laboratory remain discrete and are not integrated into an intelligent and co-ordinated system.
Also, in the conventional art, even automated open loop pipettors did not provide for an integrated and flexible fluid dispensing system. Generally, the movable dispenser, as disclosed in the Gilson and Salomaa patents, has either a single nozzle or a multiple nozzle.
In the conventional art, such as the Gilson and Salomaa patents, the user had a limited menu and selection of programming available for liquid dispensing. What is needed is a flexible software operating system which will allow the researcher to tailor his use of the work station to the needs of his particular research project.
Additionally, the conventional art required the use of specialized motor controller integrated circuits dedicated to controlling robotic movement for discrete motor operation, such as the CY512 Stepper Controller IC chip, manufactured by Cybernetic Micro Systems of San Gregorio, Calif. 94074. A flexible motor control system is needed which is adaptable for variable loads and which is programmable to avoid collisions and improper interaction between components of the robotic system.
Fulfilling the foregoing needs is the goal of the subject invention.